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Showing posts from 2017
Greetings friends of the Bartlett Roundhouse! As you can see from the previous posting, this is an exciting day for the Society!  We have received a $25000 grant from the NH Land and Community Heritage Investment Program, to be used with allocated matching funds from other sources, to repair and restore all of the exterior walls of the Roundhouse, except the front main door area and the backs of stalls one and two, which our latest grant from the Moose Plate Program allowed us to achieve.  This is a historic moment for us.  We are now a huge step closer to our ultimate goal of creating a railroad history museum and interpretive center on railroading in Bartlett, Crawford Notch, and northern New Hampshire. Those of us involved in the project from the beginning weren't even thinking this far ahead when we began the process just to save and stabilize the structure back in 2006.  This was so far in the future for us that we couldn't even hope to see this day coming.  We had gre
Bartlett Roundhouse Preservation Society Celebrates $25,000 Grant Award NH’s Land and Community Heritage Investment Program awards $3,600,000 to conserve the State’s natural,  cultural and historic resources, including preserving the Bartlett, New Hampshire railroad roundhouse. Bartlett NH; December 4, 2017 – Bartlett Roundhouse Preservation Society, an organization dedicated to  restoring and preserving the Bartlett New Hampshire railroad roundhouse, has received a $25,000 grant from  the NH Land and Community Heritage Investment Program (LCHIP) to support its efforts to bring the Bartlett  roundhouse back to life as a museum defining the history of railroading in Crawford Notch and northern New  Hampshire. T he forty-two projects receiving awards are spread all across the state, from Littleton to Nashua and Westmoreland to Star Island. Thirty-five very different communities are benefiting from the grants, from  tiny Langdon (population 689) to Nashua (population 87,551). LCHIP’s
This has been a very interesting series of weeks. As many of you know, there were severe floods on the rivers in and around Bartlett a couple of weeks ago which caused serious damage to the Maine Central Mountain Division in areas along the Saco River. There were a number of washouts and some of our friends in the area lost personal property and vehicles to the incredible water levels. I ran up and checked out the roundhouse shortly after the floods had passed and am pleased to report that it weathered the storms well. The floods did not impact the structure at all. As a matter of face, I visited during a rainstorm and found that the new extension on the back side of the roof at stalls one and two was doing exactly what it was intended to to...moving the water coming off the roof farther away from the wall to prevent it getting back inside as it was before. Thanks to the NH DOT for this small but important improvement to the building! Also, it was recently announced that P
An event took place a few days ago that really brought home how important it is for us to be doing what we are to restore and repurpose the roundhouse to become part of the historical heritage of New Hampshire.  The village of Hooksett New Hampshire has had an old road bridge spanning the Merrimack River for many of years.  Not too long ago, it was replaced with a more modern span that allowed better traffic movement through the village and the old bridge was retired.  It did get listed on the National Register of Historic Places, however, which should have been incentive to see that it survived for posterity.  Unfortunately, the structure gradually was allowed to degrade to the point where it had to be destroyed, thereby eliminating an integral piece of our New Hampshire historical narrative.  It was dropped to great fanfare a few days ago and is now being removed piecemeal from the river. What struck me most was that this was almost what was to happen to the Bartlett Roundhouse no
Over the past few days a lot of photos have been taken of the work on the back of stalls one and two of the roundhouse. I also have photos, but they will be redundant with those already posted. Suffice to say that work is moving right along and much progress has been made. Cam Sargent, our Vice President advised that the walls have been partially sided now and that that effort should be done fairly quickly, now that the structural repairs and the new sheathing and moisture barrier are in place. Apparently, the upper walls were found to be floating and in need of connection to the structure and that has been done (we had previously had some work done on the bottom, but the top was inaccessible at that time). We are now looking at how this should be painted, once the siding is in place. The building was painted completely green at some point, but, according to our retired archivist, Scott Mallett, the walls were actually green only from the ground up to the bottom of the window sill

We need Choo Choo's

Do you have trains kicking around your attic or basement? Not sure what to do with them? Consider donating them to the Bartlett Roundhouse Preservation Society. You can make it a tax deductible donation. We are mainly looking for HO scale trains, but will take any scale. We will sell them as fundraising items and the money will go to help restore the Roundhouse! If you would like to donate please contact Pete at granduck@aol.com or Scotty at scottymallett@gmail.com Thank you very much!!